Be prepared: Lubbock Preparedness Fair will give information Saturday

Russ Wallace, a Texas A&M extension agent, stands beside plants he will be giving out at the Lubbock Preparedness Fair on Saturday, March 29 at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Lubbock at 7014 Frankford Ave.

If you’ve ever struggled to find out which varieties of tomatoes would be most likely to survive and be fruitful over the hot, windy Lubbock summer, there’s a seminar this weekend for that.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is hosting the Lubbock Preparedness Fair at its chapel at 7014 Frankford Ave. from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, March 29.

More than 50 booths on topics ranging from water to bug-out kits and from child safety and car seat installation to solar power for emergencies will be at the fair. The Lubbock Preparedness Fair will also feature four different seminars, each of which will be offered twice during the day: “Doomsday Preppers: Realities and Myths,” “Mental, Emotional and Spiritual Preparedness,” “Nutrition in Preparedness” and “Vegetable Gardening: Selecting the Right Varieties.”

Russ Wallace, an associate professor and extension vegetable specialist for Texas A&M Agrilife Research and Extension, gave a hot-topic talk on how to grow crops in Lubbock’s hot, windy climate during last year’s seminar. Because so many people tried to get into that seminar, he said the presentations this year will be offered twice.

“We’ll hopefully be able to accommodate more people,” he said.

Wallace said he will also be touching on some of the topics he talked about last year, including the need to protect gardens from the extreme heat and winds. He is experimenting with ways to do that at the Texas A&M Agrilife research farm north of the Lubbock airport.

With a grant sponsored by the Wal-Mart Foundation and administered by the University of Arkansas, he grows strawberries during the winter under a high tunnel shelter. Lubbock residents can make a smaller low tunnel for their gardens for less than $1,000, he said.

In addition to his seminars, Wallace said Texas A&M extension agents will be available at a booth at the Lubbock Preparedness Fair, where they will be handing out tomato plants, chile pepper plants and bok choy, a Japanese plant he compared to celery. He said he has over 700 of each plant to hand out to those in attendance.

Wallace joked that he sometimes feels the plants he gives away are on suicide missions.

“But I’ve gotten reports back that people have had success, too, so that’s encouraging,” he said.

Planting vegetables isn’t the only way to prepare for emergencies, Wallace said. He and his wife have a year’s supply of food. Even if no hurricanes hit Lubbock, he feels more security in case he loses his job or his ability to work.

Wallace said he has a family member who did lose a job, and she was grateful to be able to live off her food supply.

After Lubbock went on a water boil notice more than a year ago, Wallace said he went out to purchase bottled water just in case and found that stores had already sold out. Now he also stores water, not only in 55-gallon drums but in used soda bottles with a few drops of chlorine added.

Michael McCauley, the public affairs representative for the Lubbock Stake of the LDS Church, said it took him a long time to put together a long-term emergency food supply.

“It’s not something that you can do overnight,” McCauley said. “The goal is not to eat the elephant in one day.”

For financial reasons, his food supply took a while to build up. He suggests that people focus first on building up a 72-hour supply, then a 30-day supply and then a one-year supply.

“It doesn’t take a whole lot to get you sustained,” he said. “Seven days can be a long time, or it can be a real long time if you don’t have those types of things available to you.”

McCauley said he is hoping to have 1,500 to 2,000 people attend the preparedness fair this year. Last year, 1,700 people attended. The more people who attend and plan ahead, he said, the more people will be in a position to help others instead of having to seek out their own survival methods in the case of a catastrophe.

karen.michael@lubbockonline.com • 766-8726

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Seminars

■ “Doomsday Preppers: Realities and Myths” will be offered by Brett and Christie Antczak at 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.

■ “Mental, Emotional and Spiritual Preparedness” will be offered by Jason Whiting at 10:30 a.m. and 1 p.m.

■ “Nutrition in Preparedness” will be offered by Liz Broadstreet at 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.

■ “Vegetable Gardening: Selecting the Right Varieties” will be offered by Russ Wallace at 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m.